


Nature Watching of the Magical Kind

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Dorks in Love, Dragons, Ezekiel Kinda Likes It, Fluff, Jacob is a Giant Nerd, M/M, Nature Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 18:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16023659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: This was a stupid idea. Ezekiel's not sure why he ever agreed to go along with this. Oh, right. Because he, for some inexplicable reason, wants to know what Jacob Stone does outside of work. Which, apparently, involves mountain climbing. And dragons.





	Nature Watching of the Magical Kind

This was a stupid idea.

Ezekiel was an idiot. Why did he ever think that he was built for mountain climbing? A part of him knew it was because his pride was a little stung after Jacob had claimed (truthfully) that he was better at anything outdoorsy than him. A part of him was curious about seeing a dragon in person since his last meeting was less than stellar. And a part of him that he was trying to ignore really just wanted to know what Jacob Stone did between their adventures.

Apparently, that was going to study a colony of _Draconis quetzalcoatlus gigantis,_ an endangered Mesoamerican subspecies of dragon that lived in the Ismaloya mountains. Not all dragons were enormous sentient havoc-wreakers that lived under the earth. There were many other species and subspecies in the _Draconis_ family that were more like animals. Kind of like the difference between humans and the great apes, Jenkins had tried to explain. Jacob had apparently located a nesting site and was going to observe them. And like an idiot, Ezekiel had asked if he might come with. Just because dragons were cool, not because he wanted to be around Jacob. No, of course not.

"Jesus, cowboy, how much higher are we going? I didn't brink an oxygen tank with me," Ezekiel protested as the historian started free-climbing up a rock face to a protruding lip of rock.

"Relax, Jones, this is it right here," Jacob replied with a smirk. "Can you free-climb or do you need a hand up?"

"Can I free-climb?" Ezekiel repeated scornfully. "I hang off buildings by my bloody _fingertips,_ mate, I can climb a stupid mountain." The rock was rough, but that made it easier to grip, and he pulled himself up to where Jacob was standing. There wasn't much room on the ledge, and he had to press back against the rock to keep himself steady. "Where the hell is it? I don't see any dragons, mate."

"Not out here. _In_ here," Jacob said, and with that, he turned sideways...and disappeared.

"The fuck?" Ezekiel muttered, inching his way down to where Jacob had been standing, feeling along the rock with one hand until he met empty air. There was a crack in the side of the mountain, totally invisible until he put his hand right in it, that opened into a passage so narrow he'd have to edge through it sideways.

"C'mon, Jones," Jacob called from the darkness, his voice echoing slightly. "Perfectly safe."

Well then. Ezekiel turned sideways and began to shuffle into the dark crevasse. He could feel the walls scraping against his pack and his chest at the same time, and it was completely, utterly dark. He edged a little further along, and then he could see a sliver of light, hair-thin, just ahead of him. A few more steps, and then the splinter of light opened up into free air, and Jacob was reaching out to grab his arm and pull him out. "You good?" he asked.

"Yep. Good thing I'm used to that," Ezekiel replied, dusting off his jacket and then looking around. The narrow passage opened up onto a jutting shelf of rock, maybe three metres at the widest point, that overlooked the deep bowl of a tiny valley, maybe ten metres up from the valley floor. And below them was the colony of _Draconis quetzalcoatlus gigantis._ The illustration did them absolutely no justice.

They were maybe two metres at the shoulder, about as tall as a draft horse, but they had long, elegant necks that they held upright, putting their heads about three metres above the ground. The bodies were long and lithe, all muscle, on four surprisingly short legs, rather like a weasel or ferret. And they were covered in beautiful scales that appeared pale blue one moment, then silvery-green, then a mix of all three, striped with slashes of smoky grey; then a flash of bright white he almost thought he imagined until he saw the long, slender wings folded along their backs, snowy white and almost pearlescent. Around their heads was a ruffled mane of long, glittering iridescent feathers that any peacock would envy. More feathers fringed the backs of the forelegs and the tops of the shoulders above the wing joints. Their heads were squarish, with blunt muzzles and big, round eyes that took up most of their faces, like owls, with a set of pronged horns between large frilled ears. One of them yawned, showing off a mouthful of long saw-blade teeth.

There were six adult ones that he could see, and there were over a dozen itty-bitty baby ones. And unlike the adults, the babies didn't have the bright feathers or the majestic colouring. Their scales were very dull and plain, and their fat little bodies made them look less like dragons and more like...scaly little wiener dogs. Especially with the way they powered around on their stubby legs. And there were also quite a few that were bigger than the babies but nowhere near the rainbowed brilliance of the adults, moving around with an awkward gangly lope, like teenagers coming into a growth spurt.

"Wow," Ezekiel murmured, but then he glanced around and frowned. "Uhm, Stone...there is literally no cover up here. What's gonna stop them from eating us when they spot us?" he asked anxiously. Even from a distance, he could see the quetzalcoatls had wickedly long, sharp claws.

"Just stay low and don't make sudden movements," Jacob murmured in an undertone. "Try not to be too loud."

"Why?"

"They're farsighted. They have excellent long vision because they hunt from the air, like birds of prey, but their close-range vision sucks. It's based on movement. So long as you keep very still, it won't see you, and it'll forget about you in a second or two," he explained. Ezekiel noticed that he moved slowly and carefully, and he kept his eyes on the quetzalcoatls the entire time. If one looked his way intently, he'd go still for a few seconds, until it looked away again.

"Are they dangerous?"

"Any animal's dangerous in the right conditions," Jacob replied. "The quetzacoatl was worshipped as a deity by the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures for centuries. They were given sacrifices, had temples built to them. Nobody would dare attack them and treated them like gods. So they might not see humans as a threat anymore. But that was also a very long time ago, and the conquistadors killed them by the hundreds when they arrived, so. It doesn't hurt to be cautious."

"Got it. So, what exactly are you doing?" Ezekiel wondered.

Jacob pointed towards the floor of the shallow valley. There were three nests, roughly bowl-shaped, that'd been scratched into the hard ground, made of dried mud and straw. "Counting. They're a very important part of the ecosystem here, and I'm seeing how their numbers are doing."

"How could you possibly count them from here?" The infants were scuttling around like mad, and he couldn't tell the difference between them at a distance.

Jacob handed him the binoculars. "The adults make the nest just before the eggs are laid. The ground's still soft and wet, so the eggs leave permanent tracks in the mud as it dries."

Ezekiel looked at the closest nest, adjusting until the image focused. And he could see there were several oval egg-shaped dents in the dried mud. "Cool. Do you want me to count for you, or did you already do it?"

"Count 'em."

"Fourteen on the left," he said after doing a quick count. "But I think one of them didn't hatch."

"Why?"

Ezekiel lowered the binoculars. "There's one eggshell that's still almost in one piece. The others are all smashed up, except that one. I think it broke early."

Jacob nodded. "Alright. Thirteen hatchlings, then. Middle nest?" The nests were arranged in a triangular pattern, almost equidistant from each other, but they were almost directly between two nests, with one to each side and then the third almost straight ahead in the 'middle.'

Ezekiel looked. "Uhm. I can't tell. There's a teenager in the way."

"Count the right one, then. It'll move in a minute."

The one on the right had been broken in half, it looked like, but Ezekiel credited nine eggs that hatched. "That's probably from the youngest pair. They tend to have smaller nests when they first breed," Jacob noted, scribbling in his notebook. "Did the teenager move yet?"

"Yep. I've got fifteen in the middle nest, no broken ones. So that makes...thirty-seven."

Jacob tapped the end of his pen against his teeth. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean thirty-seven of them are still alive. Infant mortality rate can be pretty high in predators. I wish I could get closer."

Ezekiel was still holding the binoculars to his eyes. "You'd probably have to take pictures to be sure, but it looks like they all got different markings on their snouts," he said; he was good at recognising and differentiating between patterns. It was how he spotted forgeries and memorized security schedules for heists. "I got...thirty-three babies and...twenty-six teenagers."

When he lowered the binoculars, Jacob was giving him an impressed look. "Good job, Jones. So, counting the adults, we've got...73, not bad."

Ezekiel blinked. "Seventy-three? Where'd you get the other eight?"

"Haven't you noticed? All the adults here are the males."

"Males? Really?"

"Yep. The quetzacoatl shows an inverse of traditional sexual dimorphism. The males are smaller than the females, and they're left in charge of the nests when the females are hunting, sort of like a lion pride. Look at their heads. See the crests?"

Ezekiel looked. True enough, he saw that all the adults had a crest of vibrant, electric-blue feathers on their heads that could fan open and closed, like a peacock's tail. "How about that?"

"Uh-huh. And see how three stay by the nests and the other three kind of move between them? The ones that stay put are the mated ones, protecting their nests. The other three haven't mated yet. From the size of them, and the colour of their crests, I'd say they only just got old enough," Jacob pointed out; the crests on the roving males were a paler, less-vibrant blue than the stationary males, and they were a little smaller.

A shadow passed over the ground, and Jacob tipped his head back. "And speaking of, there's the females."

Ezekiel looked up and saw shapes wheeling through the sky, circling and coming lower and lower with each pass. The babies and teenagers all immediately clustered around the nests, standing underneath the males so the ground was clear for the females to land. And Jacob was right. They were at least twice the size of the males, perhaps even three times bigger, and they shone with the same pale blue-grey-white iridescence that probably made them invisible in the sky, striped with bands of steely grey. They lacked the tall feathery crests, but they still had the same frill of glittering feathers around their heads and on their shoulders, but they didn't have the fringing around their legs. Probably because they did most of the hunting. Blood probably clotted up the feathers something horrible.

Each female had a dead animal in its mouth and another clutched in its talons. Deer, pigs, llamas, even a jaguar. One had a giant seal, another had a dolphin. Half of the animals were ripped open and then set in the middle of the triangle for the teenagers and babies to eat. The adults shared the other animals. The mated females, Ezekiel saw, shared only with their males, whilst the unmated ones ate freely, males and females both, on the outside of the triangle.

"Where is she?" Jacob muttered to himself.

"Who?"

"We're missing one. Look." The middle nest was missing its female. The male still had his head cocked towards the sky curiously, his crest opening and closing again, like a nervous person folding and unfolding a napkin at a restaurant waiting for their date to show up.

Jacob took the binoculars from Ezekiel's lap and looked up at the sky, frowning a little, but then he grinned. "Ah, there she is. Jones, get ready to meet the big boss."

The last female was _huge._ She was at least half again the size of the next largest female. Her stripes weren't even grey, they were black, and her neck feathers were longer, thicker, and brighter than any of the other ones. She had only one animal in her talons, but that was because it wasn't a deer or a pig. It was a _whale._ Ezekiel guessed it was probably a calf, but still. It was a fucking _whale._ She had to use all four of her feet to hold onto it and had to drop it before she could land, folding in her pearly white wings. The stripes on her head formed a mask around her intelligent yellow eyes.

"That's the alpha female," Jacob murmured. "They're like hyenas. There's a matriarchal order, and she's the boss. I call her Sheba."

"She's definitely something," Ezekiel agreed. "So...what now?"

Jacob shrugged as he grabbed his pack and started digging through it. "That's about it. I usually just sit out here for a few hours, watch how they interact, but we can go if you want."

"No, that's fine. We can stay."

The cowboy smiled and pulled out a few wrapped sandwiches, a bag of pretzel sticks, and a large steel thermos. "Hungry? I always try to eat when they do so they don't smell it and notice me." That was probably a good idea; all of the quetzalcoatls were completely absorbed in their feeding.

"Sure." Ezekiel noticed that even as they ate, Jacob kept his notebook and pen right next to him the entire time, and his gaze stayed on the quetzalcoatls. "Why are you so interested in them anyways?" he asked after a minute.

Jacob shrugged and dipped a crusty corner of his sandwich in a cup of soup from the thermos. "Because they're beautiful. Because I find them incredible. They're animals that nobody else has probably ever seen in the 21st century. They've been depicted in the art and religion and history of Mesoamerica, but nobody would ever think that they were real, living, breathing creatures. It's like seeing _The Great Red Dragon_ coming to life right in front of me."

"Oh." Ezekiel nibbled on a pretzel stick. "Hey, what are they doing?" Two of the bachelors were dragging away the unfinished carcasses, disappearing into a narrow crevasse in the side of the valley wall. After a moment, they came back out and started pulling more of the carcasses into the hole.

Jacob scribbled something in his notebook. "I'd have to go down there and look to know for certain, but there's probably an underground cavern or permafrost down there where they're caching food. Even in the spring and summer months, there's places in the mountains where the ground stays frozen because the snow doesn't melt. And there's places underground that have below-zero temperatures because they're too far from the surface to get any heat from the sun. So whatever doesn't get eaten gets pulled down there to freeze. So that way, if there's ever a famine or shortage, the babies don't go hungry."

"Got it. That's pretty clever."

They packed up their food as the quetzalcoatls finished eating and sat back to simply watch. Ezekiel closed his eyes for a minute, and when he opened them again, the sun was suddenly way closer to the horizon than it had been before, already halfway behind the jagged mountain peaks. And he had his head resting on Jacob's shoulder, too. The historian wasn't paying him any bit of attention, either. He had his notebook open to a clean sheet and was sketching Sheba, who was sitting to where she was giving them a full profile view of her long, lithe body. "Timesit?" he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes as he sat up.

"About four. I was just about to wake you up. Ready to go? They're bedding down, and it'll start getting pretty dark in a few minutes once the sun's behind the mountains," Jacob replied. The adults were all dozing in a kind of torpor after feeding. The mated pairs lay curled head-to-toe around their nests, and the babies were all piled together between their parents. The bachelors kind of spread out around the perimeter.

"Sure. I don't think hiking in the dark's a good idea."

As they made their way back down the side of the mountain towards the empty cabin, Ezekiel wondered if maybe Jacob would let him come with the next time he visited. The quetzalcoatls were pretty awesome, if mildly terrifying as well. The hiking bit sucked, but at least it wasn't a very long climb.

Just like Jacob predicted, it started getting dark almost immediately as the sun sank behind the mountains. It was like someone had suddenly decided to flip the switch on day and night without bothering to do the whole 'evening' part. About two-thirds of the way down, Jacob tossed him a headlamp just in case it got too dark to see where they were putting their feet. Ezekiel had pretty excellent night vision, but he was grateful for the headlamp nonetheless. Soon enough, he could see the roof of the cabin below, maybe a hundred metres away.

"Ah, Library sweet Library, here we come," Ezekiel sighed in relief as the climbed down the last jutting bit of stone onto the relatively flat stretch of rock the cabin was built on. He started to pull out his mobile to call Jenkins for a door, but then Jacob put a hand on his arm.

"Jones, I, uhm...thank you. For helping today. I mean, you didn't have to stay," he said. "I'm sure that breaking into a top-tier security system is a lot more exciting than nature-watching, magical creatures or not."

"Nah, mate, it was...well, I won't say fun, 'cause it wasn't. But it was...interesting," Ezekiel replied, and it had been, way more than he'd honestly expected. "I was actually wondering if I might come with you the next time you come back."

The historian's eyebrows hiked up in surprise. "Really? Uhm, sure, I guess. It'll probably be a couple weeks, depending on whether or not we get a new case, but...yeah, sure. I'll let you know when I come back."

"Good. Next time, I'll bring lunch." And he'd bring something a little more palatable than corned beef sandwiches and Campbell's soup.

Jacob's hand was still on his arm, and his thumb was gently rubbing back and forth. Jacob seemed to realise this at the same time Ezekiel did, because he dropped his hand quickly and shuffled back a little, putting some space between them. "We should call Jenkins for a door."

"Yep. Got it." Ezekiel pulled out his mobile and quickly rang the Library, asking the Caretaker to wire up the door to the coordinates that Jacob had left taped to the Back Door. Once he slipped the mobile back in his pocket, they went to stand in front of the cabin door, waiting for the familiar crackling of blue light to appear around the edges of the doorframe. Jacob scuffed at an exposed bit of rock with his toe. _To hell with it._ "Hey, Jacob?"

Whether it was the use of his first name or the tone of Ezekiel's voice, the historian turned to face him completely. "Yeah?"

Ezekiel leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jacob's stubbled cheek. "Thanks for bringing me with."

The door lit up with a familiar blue light, energy crackling around the frame, and in the sudden light, Ezekiel could see Jacob blushing all the way to the tips of his ears.

This had been a great idea.


End file.
